Encounter with Ice Age past, gift shop for crafts, global view
New programming at local museums promises encounters with Los Angeles’ past, from an Ice Age animal to the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple-turned-Marciano Art Foundation.
Holiday gift shopping and exhibits on animation and works by Black artists are also featured this month.
Ice Age Encounters returns Wed., Dec. 4, to the La Brea Tar Pits in a show for families and children of all ages. A life-size, saber-tooth cat puppet — representing the real ones that roamed Los Angeles 10,000 years ago — will be featured in a live show on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 a.m and 11:30 a.m. For tickets and more information, visit tarpits.org.
At the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, aimed to bring a smile to the holidays and for all ages — but especially tailored for younger audiences — Animation and Me opens Sat., Dec. 7.
SPIDERMAN will be included in the “Animation and Me” exhibit opening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Film clips, concept art and behind-the-scenes footage will tell the story of animation from its beginnings. Award-winning animator Marlon West of “Frozen II,” “Encanto,” “The Lion King” and more will join visitors in the gallery for a Drop-in and Draw session on opening day from noon to 3 p.m. “Animation and Me” runs through April 6, 2025. Visit academymuseum.org.
The festive season will be celebrated at the Craft Contemporary Holiday Marketplace on Sat., Dec. 7, and Sun., Dec. 8, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Curated, one-of-a-kind pieces by Los Angeles-based artists will be for sale, including ceramics, jewelry, textiles and candles.
Refreshments, music and family-friendly workshops will be at the event, which is free to members and $20 for the general public. Visit craftcontemporary.org.
CYPERUS PAPYRUS, a work by Zohra Opoku, is in “Imagining Black Diasporas” at LACMA.
A new exhibit, Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st Century Art and Poetics, features 60 artists working in Africa, Europe and the Americas, and it includes painting, sculpture, photography and other media. Contemporary poets contributed original work to the exhibit, which opens Sun., Dec. 15, and ends Aug. 3, 2025, in BCAM at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
More than half of the artworks in the exhibit were recently acquired by LACMA, which shows “the museum’s commitment to Black artists working everywhere and points to the future of even more global collections of contemporary art at LACMA,” museum CEO Michael Govan said in a statement.
Two exhibits will open at the Marciano Art Foundation (MAF) this month. The first is Light-scape, a cinematic work by Doug Aitken, which is part of PST ART programming and is offered from Tues., Dec. 17, to March 15, 2025. (See story on Page 23.)
Works by artists Kristen Wentrcek and Andrew Zebulon are featured in Quaternion, which also opens at MAF on Dec. 17. The artists draw on materials like mosaics and stained glass that are features of Millard Sheets’ Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, where the Marciano Art Foundation now resides. The late Sheets was an artist and architectural designer. Visit marcianoartfoundation.org.
Category: Entertainment